U.S. suspends defense export licences to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 14:42 GMT]Department of Defense Trade Controls of the U.S. State Department announced in its website that U.S. is suspending defense export licences to Sri Lanka. This announcement follows the signing by President Bush of the H.R.2764 bill of the 110th Congress of U.S.A., Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 which barred sales of military equipment to Sri Lanka.

Full text of the announcement follows:

In accordance with “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008,” effective December 26, 2007, it is the policy of the United States to deny applications for licenses and other approvals to export or otherwise transfer defense articles and services to Sri Lanka. The only exception to this policy is that licenses may be issued for technical data or equipment made available for the limited purposes of maritime and air surveillance and communications. Such licenses remain subject to case-by-case review.